Thursday, February 24, 2011

Meet The Thomson Reuters News Editors Event Recap

Posted by Amanda Walsh


Tuesday night, I had the pleasure of attending a "Meet the Thomson Reuters News Editors" event in New York City. A panel Q&A session was held featuring Martha Graybow, Editor in Charge of Legal, Accounting, Restructuring; Reuters News; Eric Effron, Editor, Reuters Legal News; Nadia Abadir, Managing Editor, Westlaw Business Currents; and Julie DiMauro, Commissioning Editor; Governance, Risk & Compliance Division of Thomson Reuters.  

The insightful program left me with a few takeaways to remember when pitching Thomson Reuters and their various platforms and publications. 

Each publication has a different target audience and journalistic style. There seemed to be stories that could be cross-shared between the various publications under the Thomson Reuters umbrella and the editors said they share many resources and story ideas between them. In general, they agreed that stories about legal trends and best practices of litigation would be of interest to publish.

Martha spoke about Reuters News and its legal/business-based audience. She noted that the publication looks for exclusivity in their stories this is something that communications professionals may not have considered in the past when pitching Reuters and, although they are on tight deadlines, Martha added that they do compile features and special reports.

As editor of Reuters Legal, a new division of Reuters, Eric Effron focuses on breaking legal news. He talked about the legal community as a whole and that he looks to publish stories on legal policy, trends and cutting-edge litigation.

Westlaw Business Currents and Complinet provide cross-promotional opportunities.
Each publication features guest authored articles and spotlight interviews, which are excellent ways for key experts to be quoted. Editors, Nadia and Julie, are looking for examples of thought leadership and trends in various industries including legal, accounting, compliance and financial. Above all, they discussed the importance of an article addressing “lessons learned” or how to improve efficiency from a firm management perspective or litigation standpoint.

When pitching any of the editors, crafting a story idea or article with a current news hook can make it easier to cross-promote throughout the channels. Reuters News caters to the most broad-based audience while Complinet is focused on risk and financial professionals. Ultimately, answering the question, “how/why is this important?” is essential to garnering media placement within the Thomson Reuters platforms.

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